Mages in 3.02

[Felbane]

Copypasting stuff I wrote on illumination forums so tFO mages can benefit and comment. =)

after trying a bit back and forth, I think I've settled on
this spec. focus magic and clearcasting are nice, especially since you're giving someone else 3% more crit as well.
interesting would be if two mages could buff eachother, and still get procs, for 6% crit chance increase.

the other viable spec I see is same but with elemental presicion and icy veins instead of the arcane bits.
elemental presicion, by ways of regemming, will translate to either 1,9% haste or 1.35% crit.
icy veins if spammed is 2.2% haste equivalent. I'll assume that the part that haste equivalent couting is clumsy and wrong in some fight lengths roughly matches up with the also forgotten gains of haste stacking with other cooldowns.

this means you're looking at:

10% mana off and 6% crit (not personally, but we're a raid, remember?)

vs 4.2% haste
vs 2.2% haste and 1.35% crit.

ignoring the new and improved haste vs crit comparison I'll do in my next post, and assuming 30% talented crit, 10% haste unbuffed.
Furthermore assuming 18% spellcrit from buffs. (molten armor, scorch and elemental oath.)
Also 5% haste buff from raid. (did I miss any buffs? tell me )

meaning base crit 48% and base haste 15% and critting 1% more often = 1% faster casting


1% crit is then a 0.67% dps increase
1% haste is a 0.87% dps increase

3.65% dps increase
3.65% mana usage increase
vs
2.01% dps increase, and 3% crit on someone else.
11.6% mana usage decrease

note that this comparison contains an unfair disadvantage vs crit, since neither hot streak nor burnout is acocunted for.
more TC on this to come next time I have too much time on my hands.

[Felbane]

as promised, crit vs haste! zomg!

first off, mana. haste increases the rate at which you spend mana by making you cast spells faster, thereby having a 'cost' to its dps increase.

Crit on the other hand, doesn't. Instead by means of talent, we get 30% mana back on each crit, thus 0.3% LESS mana used per % of crit.


now, damage.
from talents, we have 75% bonus on the direct hit, then 40% of spell damage as a dot. 40% of BASE spell damage, not crit damage. sadly.

total effect: 115% bonus damage.

hot streak then? well.. thats another story entirely.
with critchance x, hotstreak proc chance will be x^2-x^3+x^4 etc.
worded differently for clarity... the chance of a spell being a crit, AND the previous spell having been a crit, but not the one before that. (which would make the previous spell a hotstreak proc, thus resetting the counter. and same for THAT one, and for the next etc.)
for a mage like me with buffed critchance of 54%, this equals 0.29 - 0,16 + 0.08 -0.04 + 0.02 etc, panning out at around 18.5%
1% crit chance from stats means I crit 1.85% more often, which results in a hotstreak happening 0.51% more often.

how does a hotstreak affect dps then? a pyroblast is at my current +dmg worth around 800 damage more than a fireball, call it 30% more. so HSchance% of your fireballs will do 230% noncrit damage (crits scale about the same) and take 60% longer to cast, for a rough 40% dps increase.
for clarity this is to say fireball + instant pyroblast has 40% more damage per second dealth than just a fireball.
with my 18.5% chance for a hot streak, the talent buffs my fireballspam dps with abotu 7.4%
hot streak happening 0.51% more often yields another 0,2% dps increase.

so in the end, HS makes 1% more crit in the character sheet give you 0.2% dps extra


without HS then? with 0% crit, 1% added crit will make 1 spell in 100 do 115% damage, ergo its a 1.15% dps buff.
with 54% crit rating, adding 1% to 55%, makes you go from 162.1% of critless damage, to 163.25%, meaning a 0.7% increase.

adding up then, crit+HS dps is 169.5%, and with 1% more crit it increases to 170.8% ergo a 0.77% increase

summing up, 1% haste at 110% haste is a 0.87% dps increase while 1% crit at 54% is 0.77%.

Haste rating is still superior to crit rating, but for raw percentages the difference is not large. factor in mana usage and crit is very competitive.

and this is still at SW gear level with huge crit and yet undeveloped haste. expect crit value to rise with wotlk gear.

[Felbane]

something on gems then.

Since gems have their own little take on item budget , gemming for hitrating is immediately gainful, hit rating gives you more % of a more valuable stat.
further, you get 6 +dmg for the same 'budget' as 5 crit or haste rating. crit rating with its 22 rating per % is a straightaway looser.
6 damage translates to 7.8 average damage increase on fireballs, which is 0.3% if your average noncrit is around 2600, 0.26% at 3000, and 0.24% at 3300 average.
0.31% haste (5 rating) is a 0.28% buff at 10%, 0.27% at 15% haste, and 26% at 18.7% haste (me with totem of wrath, not sure what other haste buffs there is)

looking at this, it seems my gemspots are currently best used for +dmg and +hit. (according to wws, my average noncrit fireball in BT was just above 2800) thus I spam +dmg in my red slots, and a mix of hit and hit/dmg gems in my yellow slots, to get as much dmg in while remaining hitcapped.

[Felbane]

also note that roasted clefthoof now also gives spell hit rating, misery is now a 3% hit rating buff, and surefooted gives 10 each of crit and hit, letting you forsake a bunch of hitrating in both gear and talents.